


Float

by Chai_Teafling



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Caleb is a bronze dragon, Dysphoria, Gen, but he has no idea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 01:53:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29910342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chai_Teafling/pseuds/Chai_Teafling
Summary: The first time that Caleb could remember his mind being quiet — truly quiet — was the first time he saw the sea. He didn't know why it called to him so strongly, being from a place far from the coast, but once he sees it for the first time it pains him to leave.A series of scenes exploring Caleb's relationship to the sea, exploring the idea of him as a young bronze dragon who doesn't know his true form.
Comments: 14
Kudos: 74





	Float

**Author's Note:**

> This work deals with some strong emotions and feelings of dysphoria. Please proceed with caution if this is a subject that is difficult for you. It gets very sad at times. There is a hopeful ending, though, so don't worry!
> 
> Spoilers up to and including episode 128. Events thereafter are vague and speculative.

The first time that Caleb could remember his mind being quiet — _truly_ quiet — was the first time he saw the sea. The smell took him away immediately, the sounds of his friends and the distant docks becoming faint and fuzzy as he focused on the endlessness of the waves. It was like he had entered a trance, called by the gentle pull of the waves.

Pulling off all his clothing without so much as a care for where it landed, he walked straight out into the ocean until the water was up to his neck and then just… let go. Floating felt so natural, like his body was being cradled and rocked like when he’d been a baby in his mother’s arms. He couldn’t really remember experiencing that, but it was the closest thing he could think to compare the experience to. It felt like home, which was strange given that he’d grown up in a landlocked nation.

It was the first time that he’d ever lost track of time, laying there with just his face poking out of the water. The water in his ears blocked out the world he’d left behind on the shore, until it was just Caleb and the sea. He breathed in deeply, filling his chest with salty air, and lost himself to the weightlessness of the waves.

Nott was livid at him when he eventually returned, saying it was reckless to let himself float so far from shore, but Caleb had never felt more safe in his life. He of course respected her concern for him, but as he patted her head to reassure her as they left the beach, he couldn’t help but feel like he was leaving a piece of himself behind.

~

Traveling by ship had its benefits, first and foremost being that if you stood at the bow when the wind was just right, it felt like flying. Caleb spent a lot of time at the rail there as _The_ _Mistake_ surged across the sea, letting the salty spray dampen his skin and the gentle wind blow back his hair. If he spread his fingers just right, the air formed currents between them and he could almost imagine they were wings.

A few times people walked up to him as he was lost in this state, trying to capture the feeling of flight. But when they asked what he was doing, Caleb could only cast his gaze to the deck and reply “nothing.” They wouldn’t understand, and part of him felt childish for doing it at all.

The worst part of traveling by ship was that he couldn’t swim. The water was right there, teasing him day and night. But they had places to be and so the ship never stopped, and Caleb could only watch from the deck as friendly dolphins followed alongside them and jumped and sang, or as the sea came alive with the glow of millions of luminescent jellyfish. Sometimes when the sun was hot and sweat trickled between his shoulderblades, it took all of Caleb’s self-restrain to not just shuck his clothing and dive off the side into the cool water.

It took nearly a month for him to get his wish, when the entire group finally dove off together to explore the Diver’s Grave. He couldn’t help but reflect on the name of the site as he plummeted towards the surface of the water. It was, of course, the _D_ _iver’s_ Grave, and here they all were, diving to reach it. Hopefully they had better fortune than the average diver.

Nott held his hand as they descended, pulled down swiftly with the aid of iron weights. She held her breath until she couldn’t any longer, air releasing in a cloud of bubbles as her body automatically gasped for oxygen. The waterbreathing spell of course prevented them from drowning, but Nott’s fear of it was stronger than rational thought.

Caleb transitioned to breathing the briny water right away, figuring that he may as well get it over with and start sinking. The first breath of water felt odd: much thicker than air, but not difficult to breathe by any means. The anxiety that the others seemed to feel about the transition didn’t affect him at all. He clasped Nott’s hand and helped her through her panic, showing her the same gentle compassion that she so often showed him.

Being under the ocean was like being in another world. Caleb looked up to the surface when his feet finally settled on the sea floor, taking in the distant rippling sunlight. It refracted into beams near the surface, slowly fading as the water deepened. Down on the sea floor, it was dark as night. They had their light sources, luckily, and Caleb was able to see where they were going as they half walked, half swam in search of their destination.

The sudden whale song stopped Caleb in his tracks: not from fear, but from awe. Sound traveled very far underwater, and at this proximity, the calls shook him to his core. The others stopped to hide, crouching in the sea grass, but Caleb floated in place transfixed.

The leviathans drifted by with surprising grace for their size, moving at a swift pace as they curved through the water. Caleb felt a pang of longing at the sight of them, wishing he could partake in their carefree swimming. He lingered a few moments after the others had begun to move again, eyes fixated on the elegant tails as they grew more and more distant.

Moving underwater as a humanoid was difficult, with limbs made for running and climbing rather than swimming. Caleb’s frustration at his lack of mobility peaked the first time that he was in battle, assailed by creatures that swam circles around him as he flailed in the water and attempted to cast at them. Fjord had no such trouble, aided by the enchantment on his armor. Caleb was certainly jealous of the warlock’s ability to get around, but he was glad that at least one of them was putting the item he’d found in the sewers to good use.

It wasn’t long before they’d found the item they’d come for and were leaving, off to find the next temple of Uk’otoa. There was an interruption along the way, a stowaway with an arcane artifact that made Caleb’s mouth water. Once inside its strange pocket dimension, Caleb had seriously considered living in the study for the next several years to discover its secrets, but his plans had been derailed after his friends had all disappeared through a hidden portal and not returned. Begrudgingly, he had followed, though not before acquiring all of the loose magical items in the room and no fewer than three books. He was loathe to leave all that knowledge behind, but he couldn’t afford to leave his friends alone any longer.

What he had not expected to find when he landed on his back on the other side was a small blue dragon standing right on top of him. It seemed that all his friends had fled or were fleeing, with both Caduceus and Fjord shouting at them to make for the exit as they disappeared through another arcane portal. Caleb didn’t have to be told twice: he would rather do _anything_ than fight this creature. He knew they were intelligent and fearsome, not something to battle unless one absolutely had to. Casting a spell to augment his speed, he made a break for the exit.

The sight of the dragon’s hoard gave him pause, causing a churning in his stomach at the sight of all the gold and gems. Caleb knew that he had a bit of a greed problem: Mollymauk had told him as much before their demise, and though he had tried to be better, the allure of loot was still very strong. Momentum carried him to the sphere that acted at the room’s exit as the pile of gold burned itself into his retinas, and Caleb swore that he could still see it even when he’d appeared back on the deck of _The Ball-Eater._

It was not a bad trip, all things considered. Caleb had acquired an impressive spellbook, magical ink, an arcane meal substitute, and at the end of it all Twiggy had bequeathed to him the so-called “Happy Fun Ball” itself. The covetous feeling in him was stronger than ever before when she placed it in his hands, and he wrapped his arms around it protectively.

The covetous streak continued, worryingly, even after the stowaway incident. Caleb still could not get the memory of the dragon’s hoard out of his head. He dreamed of it many a night, coming close while half-asleep at one point to going back to take it for himself. The only thing that stopped him was his sleep-addled brain being unable to decipher the workings of the ball’s mechanism, and he stumbled back to his bunk angry to dream again about the pile of gold and the scent of ozone.

When they finally came upon Uk’otoa’s second underwater temple, Caleb pocketed two of the arcane items that he found without so much as a word, relishing the feeling when he added them to his satchel next to the rest of his collection. In the end he felt guilty enough about the greed to hand off one of the items to Caduceus, but only because it was something that he couldn’t see himself using.

~

Giving up the brassy ball that acted as a gateway to Halas’ personal plane was physically painful for Caleb, more akin to pulling a tooth than giving up an object. He considered it his most prized possession, next to the Beacon, and though he held it outstretched in his hands, his fingers practically had to be pried off of it for Caduceus to take it. Caleb fell apart internally while Beau and Caduceus entered the mage’s tower to talk, filled with scenarios where they gave up the Happy Fun Ball but got nothing in return. Only when the door opened and they were allowed inside did that particular fear subside somewhat. Instead, Caleb’s mind immediately began to whip up images of a mage like Trent Ikithon as he moved mechanically toward the door at the back of the line.

The mage whose tower they had entered was a short elf, and nothing like Ikithon. Caleb’s relief was palpable. Trent had always dressed in an ostentatious manner, giving him an air of superiority that had made Caleb squirm under his gaze. Though Yussa’s clothes were also extremely expensive-looking, they seemed natural on him. The robes flowed like an extension of himself, and did not seem like he was trying hard, as Trent had.

The elf’s eyes lingered on Caleb as he crossed the threshold and the door closed behind him, longer than on any of his companions. It was a tense moment of eye contact, those gold irises boring into him before the elf put on the mask of a host and began to address the entire group.

When Caleb was brought to a chamber on an upper floor on his own, ostensibly to examine a teleportation rune, the inspection continued. Yussa’s gaze seemed to go right through him, baring his soul under all the layers of fabric and pretense. Caleb had never felt so seen before, not even under Caduceus’ scrutinous gaze, but it was somehow relieving. The other mage seemed to know his nature, trust him, and Caleb could not help but do the same. When he looked at the gold-clad elf, he saw a kindred spirit. It felt odd, to trust someone he had just met so implicitly, but something about the man’s presence was calming and reassuring.

Yussa prodded a little into Caleb’s past and complimented his arcane skills. It felt like there was more behind the questioning than he was letting on, but Caleb couldn’t determine where the mage’s interest lay. He shrunk at the compliment, feeling undeserving, as Yussa seemed to have a larger estimation of his power than he did. The mage himself emanated great power despite his small stature, and despite the fact that Caleb physically towered over him, he felt small in his presence. Overwhelmed as he was, it was a welcome blessing when the mage stayed on the upper floor and allowed Caleb to return to his friends. Caleb could still feel the eyes on him, and urged that they leave immediately.

With just one more day on the coast before they were due to return inland, Caleb risked his fair skin in the sun by spending every moment he could at the beach. The familiar texture of sand beneath his toes was grounding, and the waves were a refuge from the insanity of the past month. He floated for a while and let his stress melt away before finally returning to shore, resigned and wrinkled, to join the rest of the group for a night of rest before they departed for the Empire.

~

Two months of chaos later and the group was in the den of yet another dragon, this one white, ancient, and the owner of an icy breath that was the key to reforging the legendary sword that they hoped could fix all their problems. It wouldn’t, Caleb knew, but after so many failed attempts to stop Obann and with Fjord powerless, they needed some kind of win. How they thought they could possibly achieve that in the den of an _ancient fucking white dragon_ was beyond Caleb’s guessing, but he followed his friends nonetheless. To not do so would spell certain death for them, and he was nothing if not loyal.

In the days leading up to their journey to Mythburrow, the dread in Caleb grew. He remembered his last brush with a dragon, and the prospect of facing another brewed an interesting mix of emotions in him. He was of course interested and excited at the prospect of seeing one — from a distance. To see such a creature and be in its powerful presence would surely be an experience, but Caleb knew that chromatic dragons were typically not friendly and that actually meeting the thing would not be an option. One hit from that icy breath and he’d be dead.

The dreams of gold and jewels came back as well, filling Caleb with renewed regret at having left the Happy Fun Ball with Yussa. Walking through the overstuffed aisles of the Plexus Post made his hands itch to touch and to take, to add the treasures contained therein to his collection. He understood, suddenly, the ‘itch’ that Nott so often talked about, though her collections were much more mundane than the ones that prickled at the back of Caleb’s mind.

Under the mountain itself, Caleb stayed far, far away from any action including the dragon itself. He was adamant that they were not to fight it: only get what they needed and leave right away. He set up a dome and watched as their plan unfolded, then unraveled. Juster and Nott went off to retrieve their mithril, and all the while Caleb had a small anxiety attack.

He knew Nott would try to take something from the dragon’s hoard: she always did. But it was not _right_ to take from a dragon, and would almost certainly result in her death. When she and Jester skidded into the dome, Caleb almost crushed her in a hug.

It may have been wrong to take from a dragon’s hoard, but that didn’t stop the covetous rush from pouring over him when Nott handed him the finely-made elven chain. The greed didn’t subside, either, leading him to overreach when they attempted a heist the next day. They had gotten what they came for, but the tome that exuded a strong aura of transmutation was too good to pass up. The case opened, and Caleb should have quit there, but he tried for another and failed. He would have tried for them all if he could’ve.

The group fled, and Caleb identified the items with glee on the floor of Reani’s home. The ring, of course, was the item they’d be contracted to retrieve and he could not keep, but every nerve in his body tingled with anticipation as he cast Identify over the book. A rush of disappointment washed over him as he realized it was useless to him, and he handed it to Fjord with resignation, mind fixated on the items he’d had to leave behind.

~

Avantika leapt off the deck of the icebreaker ship with the Cloven Crystal in hand, and Caleb didn’t hesitate a moment before leaping into the water after her. Midair he polymorphed into an orca, and the feeling of splashing into the water was divine. It took all of his self-restraint to not immediately surge away without anyone holding onto the rope he’d clamped in his mouth. The hemp tasted odd and he champed at it a bit while he impatiently waited for the clerics to jump down and hold on.

Then they were off, Caleb a few yards below the surface of the water and the clerics skimming along the surface. Caleb’s cetacean form slipped through the water with grace, and if he could have grinned, he would have. Gone was the frustration of swimming with gangly limbs and an excess of drag: he deftly maneuvered through the water around the floating chunks of ice, moving at great speed in pursuit of the fleeing Avantika. His heightened awareness in the water was odd, but welcome, and he quickly honed in on her location with his bolstered hearing.

The chase was exhilarating, and the battle over in moments. Caleb just swam circles around the group while they quickly looted the body and regrouped, relishing in the feeling of freedom that skimming through the water at high speed brought him. All too soon they were back at the ship, and everyone was looking at him expectantly from the ladder. Taking one last roll in the water before reverting to his human form, Caleb shivered and climbed the ladder, already regretting not using the full hour of the spell’s duration.

He jumped at the chance to go for another dip a few days later when a cetus began to follow them. Flying from the deck, he examined the creature before polymorphing into a copy of it and diving into the water. Once he had figured out what it wanted and communicated that to his friends, he spent a significant amount of time just drifting through the water, swimming in circles and rolling playfully. It was as much for the cetus’ benefit as for his own, serving to keep the atmosphere light and non-aggressive while also scratching that itch that appeared every time he was near the water.

The form still felt foreign, but the water felt good, and it was nice to unwind and play for a while. Still, the spell was over all too soon and Caleb was back on the deck of the ship, watching the giant creatures who now led their way through the ice flow. He knew it wasn’t healthy to stand out in that wet chill for as long as he did, but he just couldn’t tear himself away from his spot at the bow of the ship. The young cetuses flitted about their mother playfully, and the sense of longing in his stomach grew.

~

In the immediate aftermath of their failed heist at the Vergesson Sanatorium, Caleb collapsed to the sand in Nicodranas with his old medallion around his neck. They all required an hour of rest to attune to the new items that would protect them from prying eyes, and Caleb couldn’t help but wonder if it had all been worth it. Being confronted by Trent had brought out the worst in his fight or flight instincts. The old man claimed to want to talk, but all Caleb wanted to do was be anywhere but there. He had thrashed to cast as fast as he could to shield his friends from the archmage, throwing up his go-to Wall of Fire that he always called upon when his brain screamed for a barrier between him and his enemies.

Of course, Trent was powerful and had dispelled it immediately. It was a miracle they had escaped, with Caleb out of spells and Jester’s first attempt to teleport them having been countered. Caleb shuddered and shook on the ground, removing his boots to grind his toes in the sand as hard as he could. He listened to the waves, to the gulls, inhaled the familiar salty smell of the coast, and did his best to regain his calm.

Every nerve in his body was screaming at him to flee. Ikithon was surely on their heels, but he knew that if they didn’t take the time to attune to their necklaces that the mage would find them easily. So Caleb sat, quietly as he could, and tried to ride through the aftermath of his panic.

When Caduceus summoned the couatl, a rush of emotion hit Caleb so hard that he almost couldn’t take it. He had thought that after the events of the day he couldn’t possibly feel any emotion stronger than he had, but this took him by surprise. The feeling was hard to describe: a mix of sadness and longing that made no sense to Caleb. He sat with his arms around his legs, gently rocking on the sand behind his friends, tears silently streaking down his face as he watched the serpentine celestial frolic in the water and tried to unpack the emotions that had taken him by surprise.

He felt very distant from the Nein at that moment. They were all close to him physically, a mere few strides away, but Caleb felt as if they were very far away. None of them looked at him as he introspected, and he made no move to catch their attention. His skin itched and he longed to remove his clothing and go out into the waves, the last place he could remember feeling at peace, absurdly feeling as though that would erase the situation in which he currently found himself.

But he couldn’t go into the water, no matter how much he longed to. They didn’t have the time. They could be attacked at any moment, have to fight or flee. A little voice in his head told him that it didn’t matter, that he could go _out_ and _under_ and _away,_ leave this whole mess behind, but he shoved the thought away. He could not leave now, not with his past nipping at his friends’ heels. Not with the fate of the world hanging in the balance as their former friend worked to bring evil to their plane. Caleb dug his fingers in the sand and grounded himself with it, letting the grains dig into his skin and collect under his fingernails. As the hour came to a close, the couatl faded and Caleb had to ignore his every instinct as the Nein packed up and left, moving away from the ocean that called to him with every ebb and flow.

~

The scroll in Caleb’s hand disintegrated to dust as the world around him shifted. Before he knew it, the Volstrucker in front of him faded away and were replaced by the landscape of another plane, hot and desolate. Around him, his friends slumped with relief and guilt washed over Caleb, hotter than the air of whatever plane they now found themselves on. All of this was his fault: his insistence on acquiring the amulets, his connections to the Cerberus Assembly.

They were probably safe, for a moment. Trent could not find them without first discovering which plane they’d traveled to, and acquiring the requisite tuning fork attuned to it could be close to impossible. Caleb was running on adrenaline now, and knew he didn’t have much left. Walking a little away from the group, he collapsed to a rock and began to shiver as spots danced in his vision. He was so tired: almost entirely out of spells, bruised and burned, and mentally exhausted to the point where he couldn’t think straight.

The others were talking, but Caleb just wanted to pass out. He probably should have set up the dome, but his legs were coltish and he wasn’t sure if he could stand again to take the ten minutes to pace the outline of the circle where he wanted to summon it. He instead clutched at the Happy Fun Ball, holding onto it like a lifeline, knowing that he held the lives of his friends and their families in his hands in a literal way.

They were all taken off-guard when the rift the ground opened, shooting a jet of sulphurous steam a dozen feet in the air between them. Caleb could not see his friends nor they him, and as his heart raced and he stumbled off of his seat, more rifts opened in the ground opposite him.

Someone was shouting his name, but all Caleb could hear was the blood pounding in his ears as a creature emerged from the ground. Its skin was like cracked earth, molten lava visible just under the surface. Looming high over him, it began to advance on Caleb. He froze.

Hurt as he was, one touch from the beast and he’d surely die. It would probably also damage the device he clutched, perhaps destroying the Halls’ link to the Material Plane and locking their friends and families inside. Mentally scrambling, Caleb went through his spells, and found that with what little energy he had left, there was little he could do. With a practiced motion, he cast Expeditious Retreat and darted away from the thing, looking over his shoulder as he went.

The thing curled into a ball and rolled after him, faster than a creature of its size had any right to be. Caleb’s legs were faltering, and on the horizon he could see that he was running directly toward a cliff. Making a split-second decision, he broke off to the side and let the molten monster overtake him, hoping and praying that its momentum would carry it over the cliff.

He had no such luck, so Caleb used one of his last spells — weak, but the most powerful he could muster — to summon an earthen cat’s paw between him and the monster. He pushed with it, but the creature easily broke free of its grasp and began to charge at him.

With no magic left to his name, Caleb closed his eyes and braced for impact, shouting a wordless sound of anguish as he gripped the Happy Fun Ball with both hands. The rumbling sound immediately stopped, and when Caleb opened his eyes he just caught sight of the lava creature tumbling over the edge of the cliff. He hadn’t cast anything, and there was no one around him. The only evidence that anything had happened to push the creature off was a faint cone shape in the dust, originating from Caleb.

Caleb crumpled to the ground, brain spiraling as the adrenaline once more left his body.

~

They teleported back to Nicodranas from Aeor absolutely drained. The Somnovem had been dealt with. The Assembly could wait. Caleb cast Seeming on them before they exited the alley, and Fjord went off to secure lodging at an inn. The Château was probably still closed, and they couldn’t have gone there even if it were open. The Volstrucker likely still had eyes there, looking for them. They were fugitives, and would be until they did something about Trent.

Disguised as a non-descript group that looked vaguely like two families of humans and half-elves out for a stroll, they made their way down to the beach to relax for what felt like the first time in years. Barely a month had passed since everything had gone to shit, but Caleb felt like he was barely clinging to sanity. Between his past catching up to him and all the strange happenings, he’d been having thought spirals almost every night, and almost no time to process any of it.

Caleb took a seat on the sand with his back against a log and removed his boots, wiggling his toes through the warm, coarse grains. He rolled his trousers up to the knee and his sleeves up to the elbow and just buried his hands and feet in the sand, the texture of it a soft scratching against the itch under his skin. It wasn’t a literal itch that could be physically scratched, not really, but something about the texture of the sand did help ease it. Caleb didn’t even know when the itch had started or what it meant, but for somewhere around a year, he had just felt _wrong._

Absently, he let handfuls of sand fall from his fist like as it does through an hourglass and searched the near-perfect record of his memory. The few times that he could remember the unpleasant feeling in his body abating had a theme to them, though Caleb couldn’t fathom what it meant. First was the feeling of serenity that he’d felt floating in the ocean in Nicodranas, and every time that he’d done the same thereafter. Next was when he was on a ship, standing at the prow as the mist soothed his skin. Then there were the times he polymorphed and swam, gliding through the water unhindered.

Veth plopped down beside him, still looking like a human child of maybe eight years. The last of the sand drifted out of Caleb’s hand and he let the limb fall back to the ground, coming to rest a scant inch from Veth’s fingers.

“Are you doing alright?” she asked, voice low as to not be overheard.

Caleb curled his fingers in the sand, crunching the grains up under his fingernails. _“Ja,”_ he lied. She pouted but did not press, just watched their friends have quiet moments of comfort in the distance.

Eventually, Caleb worked up the courage to speak again, and cleared his throat. “What did it feel like, before?” There was no need to elaborate; she would know what he was asking.

She seemed taken aback at the question, and gave him a sideways glance. “It felt wrong,” she started, and took a shaky breath. “Sometimes I would forget for a while, but then I’d see my hands or my reflection and I would get upset all over again. I was uncomfortable in my skin.”

Caleb’s skin itched, and he ground the sand between his fingers hard to distract from the unpleasant buzz. He hummed to confirm that he’d heard, but did not respond. A lump had formed in his throat, and he didn’t trust his voice to hold up if he spoke.

Veth looked concerned. Despite the illusion her eyes were the same, and the look she gave him almost tipped Caleb over the edge.

“You know you can talk to me about anything, right, Cay?”

Caleb only nodded, hugging his knees as he scrunched his toes in the sand alternatingly. The wind picked up and blew a fine mist of sea spray over them, soothing his skin and setting his hairs standing on end. Shivering, he uncurled and stood, slowly unbuttoning his shirt.

“Are you going for a swim?”

“Mmhmm.”

Veth pouted again, disapproving of him going into the water as always. “Well, be careful.”

Dropping his clothes into a heap, Caleb stalked off toward the water. Stepping onto the wet sand sent a pleasant shiver through him, the cool temperature a stark contrast to the sun-warm sand behind him.

The first slap of the waves on his shins washed over Caleb like a soothing balm, calming the hum of static under his skin. He waded through the waves until he was submerged to the waist, then began to propel himself with his arms until he was far from any other swimmers and could barely skim the bottom with his toes. He turned toward the shore and floated on his back, letting his head tip back in the water until his hair floated around him in a fan and his ears were submerged.

The sounds of the world fuzzed as the water filled his ears, blocking out the distant sounds of civilization and replacing them with the calm soundscape of the water. Caleb sighed deeply as his brain began to slow down, calmed by the lack of stimulation in the water. Supported by the same even pressure all over his body, it even felt for a while like he was just a mind, bereft of physical form.

After an unknown amount of time, something gently impacted with Caleb’s back and he quickly sat up and opened his eyes. Panic should have filled him when he saw that he was on the sea floor, but for some reason it didn’t. He was safe here, he knew. He breathed as normal.

Sea grasses swayed around him in the gentle current, silvery green in the filtered sunlight. He reached out to touch some, and under his hand it turned a vibrant green. A stem sprouted from it, arcing elegantly, and at its tip a bright red flower bloomed. Looking around him, Caleb watched as the field of sea grass transformed, taking on vibrant shades of green and red and sprouting hundreds of brilliant flowers in every colour. He marveled at the sight, feeling like he was in a dream.

Something clicked then, the pieces falling into place as Caleb realized what this latest development might mean. He pushed back to the surface, head bobbing above the water with his hair plastered to his neck and shoulders as he stared at his hands. His fingers looked the same as always, if a bit more wrinkled, but somehow they _felt_ different. Almost as if he were wearing something on top of his actual body.

He was pulled from his reverie by a shout from shore, and he looked up to see Veth waving frantically and beckoning him toward the shore. He waved back and began to swim toward her, surprised at just how far he’d drifted.

Caleb walked out of the ocean a new man, feeling like he’d just unlocked a secret that had been eating away at him for most of his life. He accepted a towel from Veth with one of his first genuine smiles in months, feeling a rush of affection as she berated him for giving her a heart attack. In the distance, Yussa’s emerald tower loomed, and Caleb wondered if he had any books on the subject of dragons.


End file.
